


Homonym Alley

by methylviolet10b



Series: Sometimes Drabbles Evolve [1]
Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Accidents, Crack, Drabble Sequence, Gen, Injury, homonyms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-30
Updated: 2012-01-30
Packaged: 2017-10-30 08:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/329846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A seemingly routine matter of preventing an art theft and stopping a gang of art thieves turns into an ordeal for Holmes and Watson. Plus, homonyms.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Homonym Alley

**Author's Note:**

> My ongoing battle against homonyms, also known as yet another drabble-fic series. Now complete, or as complete as it's likely to be. Reader beware. Each individual drabble is based on a common homonym, and was used somewhere within the 100-word drabble to help further the story. The story itself is pretty much rot, but the word usage might prove useful, or at least amusing.

 

**Lightening**

It had been a long, weary night of watching, all for naught. Perhaps the dreadful weather had put off the criminals, or perhaps something else had changed their plans. Whatever the cause, even the leaden clouds could not disguise the lightening sky. Morning was here, and our vigil was over for the nonce.

“My apologies, Watson,” Holmes murmured as I stiffly got to my feet. “I was certain the thieves would come after the painting tonight.”

“You mean last night,” I mock-grumbled, and was rewarded by a brief grin. “Never mind, dear chap. There’s always tomorrow.”

“You mean tonight.”

“Whenever.”

 

**Lightning**

I could not stifle my yawns as we climbed into the cab. A wet gust of rain followed us inside, dampening both our clothes and the seats before we could secure the door.

“Straight to bed for you, Watson,” Holmes commented as I fought to keep my heavy eyelids open.

“Nonsense. Breakfast first, and then a hot bath – “

“ – assuming you don’t drown in the tub,” Holmes interjected.

“ – and a brief nap, and I’ll be good as new.”

A loud crack.

Holmes’ lightning-quick arm could not stop my pitching violently forward.

Pain blazed like lightning behind my eyes.

 

**Loose**

“Watson!”

I heard my name being called through the roar of blood in my ears. My head pounded unmercifully, with particularly sharp jabbing pains somewhere just behind my left ear.

“Watson, can you hear me?”

I wrenched my eyes open with an effort. Blurry colors resolved into shapes, but none of them made sense at first. I was staring at upholstery – but why was it sideways to where I was?

“Holmes?” Because the voice calling me was Holmes, I knew that much. “What happened?”

His voice came intermittently to my ears. “We’ve been in a crash…wheel must have come loose…”

 

**Lose**

I fought to understand what Holmes said. “A crash?”

“Yes, dear fellow. You struck your head quite hard at least once, possibly twice. Do you think you can get your feet under you?”

His voice sounded strained, and only then did I realize that he had both his arms around me like iron bands, holding me tightly against his chest and keeping me from pitching over in a heap inside the crazily-tilted, shattered cab. “I think so.”

Sharp pain lanced through my leg as I put weight on it. I did not quite lose consciousness, but the world swam sickeningly.

 

**Reign**

I grimly battled back against the darkness that crowded in on my vision. I managed to triumph over agony’s tyrannical reign, but only barely. When I recovered myself, I found myself dangling in Holmes’ arms, almost completely limp. Muttered curses sounded in my ears, ample evidence of my friend’s distress. He rarely allowed his temper to reign over him in such an obvious way.

“I’m all right now,” I tried to reassure him.

“You are very far from all right,” Holmes snapped back. “You are in need of a hospital as soon as we are freed from this blasted wreck!”

 

**Rein**

I could hear shouts, and feel the wreckage of the overturned cab shifting. “Help seems to be at hand.”

“At hand, and yet extraordinarily ineffective thus far,” Holmes growled.

I turned my head carefully, trying to see him. The strain on his face was only partially due to keeping me from pitching down into the smashed side, now on the ground. When I tried once more to help brace myself, support some of my weight, I saw Holmes visibly rein in his temper and bite back another curse.

“Steady, Watson. I have you. I won’t let you fall.”

“I know.”

 

**Night/Knight**

The sleepless night combined with the shock of the cab accident must have dulled my wits. How else to explain my asking Watson if he could brace himself? How could I have missed the rapidly-darkening stain on the right leg of his trousers?

I nearly lost my grip as Watson’s eyes rolled back in his head and he went terrifyingly limp.

My limbs screamed in protest, but I didn’t dare lay him down on the jagged wreckage. A knight’s armor wouldn’t have been enough protection against some of those splintered pieces. I simply held Watson until his eyes focused again.

 

**Taut**

After what seemed an eternity – although it cannot have been very long – our would-be rescuers finally reached us. Footsteps sounded on the side of the hansom now overhead, and the mangled door wrenched open with a shriek of overstressed wood. A pair of alarmed faces peered down at us.

“Cor! Yer alive, anyhow. Can ye climb out?”

“My friend cannot, but I can lift him up to you.”

Watson tried to object, but attempting to raise himself upwards proved too much for his injured condition. The cords on his neck went taut with strain, and then he went utterly limp.

 

**Taught**

Fortunately the two men were very strong. I have taught myself to use my muscles beyond the limits of most men, but I was far from my best. It took nearly all my remaining energy to hoist him upwards into their waiting grasp.

I eeled out after them, ignoring my own hurts. They were trivial; a few cuts and bruises. Unlike Watson, I had mostly fallen against him, not the shattering wood and glass of the hansom. His body had protected me, as he ever did. Now it was up to me to get him assistance as quickly as possible.

 

**Phase**

I had plenty of time to contemplate the case as I awaited word of Watson’s condition. The waiting area was uncomfortable, but what of that? My body was bruised, but my brain was perfectly functional.

Had the cab accident truly been an accident? Had we merely lost a wheel, or had the thieves arranged for the wheel to come loose? If the latter, the gang might be entering a far more dangerous phase of operations. Up until now, they had eschewed violence in favor of cunning. If they were changing tactics –

“Mr. Holmes?”

My thoughts came to an abrupt halt.

 

**Faze**

“Well, my dear fellow, it appears I shall have to hold tonight’s vigil alone.”

Watson’s eyes were glassy from injury and his pupils dilated from morphine, but these things did not seem to faze him half as much as my words. “Holmes, I realize I cannot come with you.” He glanced at his heavily bandaged leg before recapturing my gaze with his own. “Be that as it may, I hardly think it prudent for you to go alone.” His jaw tightened. “This accident - ”

“ – might not have been an accident. I know. I shall be on my guard.”

 

**Poor**

Although I promised Watson I would take extra precautions, I did not presume to try and convince him that I would not return to watch over the painting. For one thing, any such attempt would have been utterly absurd. Watson was injured and dazed, but hardly so far gone as to believe _that_.

And it might have made him suspicious. I would have been a poor investigator indeed if I had not recognized the potential for ambush, particularly if the hansom 'accident' was deliberate. But one man's ambush is another man's – _my_ – opportunity to catch the ambusher in the act.

 

**Pour**

To be truthful, I was far from my best that night. I still ached all over from the cab, and lack of rest, scant food, and ongoing anxiety over Watson's condition all combined to reduce both my mental and physical capacity. I did my best to plan around these inconveniences as I formulated my stratagems.

It was another wretched evening, the kind where the rain could be said not to fall, but rather pour down from the heavens in sheets. Outside the premises, visibility would be extremely limited. And inside, servants and guards alike would be prone to huddling hearthside.  
  
  
 **Two**  
I knew that there had to be at least one person providing information to the thieves from the inside. How else to explain their failure to appear the night previous, or their cunning knowledge of their targets and the precise paintings to steal? These were targeted, well-planned attacks. And if the carriage accident had been anything but, they were also alarmingly organized and ruthless.

  
I had thought that I had evaded detection when entering the house. I also only expected two thieves, perhaps three.  
  
I did not expect an entire gang, aware of my presence and out for my blood.  
  
  
 **Too**  
I had concealed myself with some care, but I realized that I would be found. Two men busied themselves removing the painting from its frame. Two more positioned themselves by the door. The other six spread out along the long gallery, searching. Several carried truncheons.  
  
If I was a betting man, like Watson, I'd have wagered my entire case fee there were men stationed at the other end of the long gallery, guarding that door, too.  
  
No easy exit, then. My only hope was one of the large windows – and the rain-slicked decorative masonry, four stories above the sodden ground.  
  
  
 **To**  
Even with morphine, I could not sleep that night. Some of it was pain, edging around the drug. Some of it was the discomfort of being in hospital, the constant noises, the astringent smells, the disturbing memories it brought to my mind.  
  
But mostly it was worry for Holmes that kept me wakeful.  
  
The night crawled past, but Holmes did not appear.  
  
The morning arrived, but Holmes did not.  
  
When I did finally receive a visitor, Lestrade's ashen, grief-drawn countenance struck an instant chill to my heart.  
  
"Doctor Watson. I would give anything not to have to tell you this…"  
  
  
 **There**  
 “You’re certain?”  
  
Lestrade shifted nervously. “Certain? No. I can never be certain, when there is no body. Particularly when - ” He broke off, deeply uncomfortable, and I knew we were both thinking of that terrible spring in 1891, and the miraculous one three years later. “But it is his coat, and there’s all the blood, both where the painting’s gone missing and on the cloth itself. And one of Mr. Holmes’ own Irregulars brought word of hearing two men boast of dumping his body into the Thames.”  
  
I closed my eyes against the pain. “Thank you, Inspector, for coming.”  
  
  
 **They're**  
Four days.  
  
No sign of Holmes – no word, no messages, no sightings… no body.  
  
I had returned to Baker Street. The painful inconvenience of my injured leg was offset by the familiar surroundings. My mental torment, however… I was haunted by his absence, and by the wordless anguish in Mrs. Hudson’s eyes that echoed what I saw in the mirror.  
  
Finally, Inspector Lestrade came with news. A nameless informant had tipped off the Yard as to where to find the gang and the missing artwork.  
  
“They’re going to pay,” he assured me.  
  
“They will. And I am coming with you.”  
  
  


 **Affect**  
Pretending that I had been killed attempting to escape the ambush was a stroke of genius – or so I'd thought. It was only after I'd thrown off my disguise and denounced the criminals that I noted Watson’s unnaturally flat affect and lack of color. I hastily helped him to a chair.  
  
“Once again I owe you a thousand apologies, for I did not consider how my actions might affect you.”  
  
Watson took a steadying drink from the brandy-flask before looking at me with an expression equally aggrieved and amused. “By now, my dear Holmes, you really ought to know better.”  
  
  
 **Effect**  
“I know,” Holmes admitted softly. “I do know, dear fellow. It took time to effect my escape and mislead the culprits. By the time I had, I’d lost sight of everything except the need to apprehend the gang before they could wreak any more havoc.” Holmes’ cheeks tinged with a rare trace of color. “But I should have found some way of alerting _you_ to my continued survival.”  
  
“Could you have done so without risking yourself or the case?”  
  
“Not without risk, no, but – ”  
  
“Then you did the right thing. I can survive your deception – but not your loss.”

**Author's Note:**

> Drabbles written and posted individually over the course of 2011.


End file.
